I played this on a SDtv and there was not cutoff anywhere. The text is still tiny though, but the entire hud fits within the screen. maybe your tv is just really old

Maybe, but if that's the case then a good few of us have really old TV's. Is your TV rectangle shaped? Mines a very large square; probably why it doesn't fit.

Most games these days have text that's damn near unreadable on even a decent sized SDTV. It svcks. I hope Bethesda addresses this.

Thank you!

Don't thanks me guys thank him haha.
Hopefully they'll give us an option to abjust our screens or something

I am still having a blast with the game but I cannot shake the thoughts knowing I am not playing skyrim exactly as how it was created to be played & experienced..knowing the visual fidelity is lacking creeps into my mind.I find it is the worst while viewing npc face on and talking.kinda has that 'fish bowl/or stretched/cramped' look...nothing staggering but none the less noticeable if you look for it.

otherwise,so far skyrim has been awesome and I am only about 6 hours in but it has lived up and so far surpassed my expectations....now if we could get a patch for us suffering sdtv owners all would be bliss

I am a young college student, living off of a part time job and federal aid.
I can't afford an HDTV. I do have a fairly nice SD though; it's a 56"

That being said, I bought Skyrim after many months of anxious anticipation,
and a few hours of standing in line at gamestop. I was so exited to play this
game. I have died countless time because I cannot see my health bar,
or mana bar. The only thing I can see on my HUD is the bottom half
of the compass. It is heartbreaking, because I love this game so far,
but I just can't see myself playing it as much as I would like too because
I can't see the hud!

Bethesda, people are complaining about the SD HUD problem en masse.
This thread has a huge number of views compared to all the other ones
on the forum. Please tell us if you are going to fix this problem.

My GF and I are eating Ramen noodles and bell peppers for a week to afford this game,
and if you aren't going to listen to your customers and fix a fairly simple problem
that is ruining an otherwise great gaming experience, then we would
like to know so that we can get our money back and eat some real food.

99%

...Why did you have to ruin a great post with the inclusion of that tired nonsense?

This seems like a very easy fix. I think that if we keep persisting we can get this patched.

I too am now complaining about the teeny text size and cut off HUD. Replacing TVs is no light task for the majority of us.

I can afford an HDTV but I can't justify buying one until one of my other TVs stops working...stupid 10 year old perfectly functioning SD plasma.

There needs to be a poll so that we can better gauge how many people are having this problem, and to get Bethesda's attention.

Maybe it is because my SD is only like 2-3 years old, but I have no HUD cutoff at all. The text is small but not unreadable, it's not nearly as bad as Dead Rising 1 was for SDTV users. The game is completely playable for me. Is this a cross platform issue or is it more towards one system for the other?

Could you let us know if they decide anything, even if it's a decision against fixing it? It would be greatly appreciated.



It might just be certain or older SDTVs then. I can see the bottom of the compass, but just barely. I usually just use the clairvoyance spell anyways, so I can get around that for now, but it's going to make it more difficult for me to find new locations. I can sometimes see the health bar, but I can only see the outline of the mana and stamina bars, so I never know how much of those I have. As for text, I can somewhat read it, but it makes my eyes sore after a while of trying. It's not quite as blury as Dead Rising's text was, so you can somewhat read it, but it is just as small and makes it tough to look at at times.

My TV is a little curved, so this may be why I can't see the corners as well. I have learned to play it as is for now, but it's really lowering the quality of the experience for me. The main thing I have trouble with though is the text, and I'm not sure how long I'm willing to deal with it.

There's a compass?! lmao

Yeah mines completely off screen too. I don't see any reason for widescreen gaming unless it's for a side scrolling game. I mean most games you can turn or look 360 degrees so there's no need for it. HD I understand the need for that, but widescreen can svck it. I can't read the text for @^%^*()*& in this game and to make the text white was an extra bad idea. I don't even notice some of the pop up text sometimes until it's too late, they should have made it yellow and much much larger.

For the love of Akatosh! Please make a patch for this so we can select "sdtv format" in the options menu, and increase text size with text color options.

I symphatise with you guys.
Through sheer luck I have one of those newfangled wide screen flat tv things and at first stuff was cut off for me too.
I found out I needed to set my xbox to 'hdtv'.

Obviously that will not help for you guys.

This is unacceptable.
To be forced to discard perfectly good hardware for the newfangled model just because the old wont support the new software is atrocious and wasteful.
The moral implications are of a disregard to anything lasting and the pressure put on consumers to buy stuff they do not need is magnified.

Distasteful.
Dishonourable.
Wasteful.

In terms for anyone that thinks profits are the most important thing: Not a good way to tickle a customer.

Additionally, newer isn't always better. The early LCDs had terrible blacks & motion blur. That's largely been relieved now, but most of them still have poor contrast ratios (the number of shades between the brightest & darkest colours), and terrible interpolation of non-native resolutions (in other words, SD content looks much blockier than it should). Also, plasmas exhibit poor brightness & a slightly fuzzy picture.

OLEDs are almost as good as CRTs, but they're apparently not as durable, and the largest size available ATM is 25", costing around $25,000!

The only problems I've ever had with CRTs are slightly skewed geometry and low resolution. Perfect motion, perfect blacks, no image artifacts other than interlacing...

BTW, please don't tell me to buy an HD CRT. You can only get them second-hand anymore, and they can weigh up to 200 pounds...

Cant.. tell. if satire..

Anyway my car does 80 hogs till the horsehead and thats fine for me!

Seriously though.
I have perfectly good and excellent functioning hardware.
I must buy new exactly why? To push the economy? Shove that, its there for me not the other way around.

When something like this does not support the format that of course the majority still uses, [] them.
Why should we be forced into the age of steel?

This is not about who can afford what.
Its one thing.

Wasteful.

I was reading and changed my xbox setting to widescreen format and I can see the bottom bars like health and stamina now, before half of the bar was cut off, which was not that big of a deal since I still saw it. And yes the message in top left was cut off, due the widescreen cut off for fullscreen(4:3).

One option, which I haven't bothered with myself yet, is if you have a relatively new computer you can just take your widescreen monitor from your computer and use it with your xbox 360 instead, if you can deal with only having a 20" screen or less, assuming you don't have like a huge 24" monitor or something.

Same problems here. Screen cut off on bottom and sides, and completely unreadable text, except for books. I understand developing software that takes advantage of the newest technology, but you could at least put a disclaimer out so I know not to waste my time and money. I am so very, very sad. Deep inside my soul.

hmmm. My issue with this is if you are on federal aid, you shouldn't be spending money on video games. I don't want to sound harsh but I'm in college, pay all my bills, and work my ass off. Everyone who is saying they cant afford to buy a cheap computer monitor and a vga cable is doing something wrong. Your either lazy or just not really trying. If you cant eat healthy for a week to buy a video game, do you think you should be buying said video game? Id be buying some chicken, fresh veggies etc. That way I would have more energy to work harder or get a new job.

If your complaining because your tv is old and you just dont want to buy a new one, not the developers fault. If they are making a product, a beautiful one, they have to use what is current. Otherwise they aren't going to make any money. Optimizing for sd would take at least another 6+ months of dev time to cater to 155 of the community. Yeah someone looked up that 50-60% of household have HDTV's, but I would bet most of the people playing video games are the 50-60% and maybe 10-15% of people play on SD.

Also the information here is laughable. Someone said their SD plasma was still working? They NEVER made a SD PLASMA. Plasma screens are only HD. Someone also said they have a sd tv but were mad cause they didn't have a hdmi cable? SD tv's do not have hdmi connections, those are HD ONLY. When somone asked is your television rectangle or square I nearly pee'd my pants.

Im done with my rant. Im just tired of people that complain about every game on a sd tv. You know it wasnt made for that, its gonna look like ass. Standard defenition is OUT DATED. Stop expecting them to cater to a older technology.

I'm also one of the unlucky ones still using an older TV. I've never understood why some people are so rude and arrogant, telling people to get with the times and get an HDTV. I understand games are being made to take advantage of HDTVs. That doesn't mean that they can't also have the ability to display properly on SDTVs.

I'm absolutely loving the game so far. I think it's not only Bethesda's best game, but probably one of the, if not THE best game I've ever played. However, I don't think it's too much to ask for the option to make the game screen fit my TV properly, and an option to make the text bigger.

The blast
Who are you telling him what to spend his money on?
This is called free market and if its all that its cracked up to be you cannot tell anyone what to do with any money they get.
The cheeck of it.

I dont really care about any long winded excuses that you can come up with on cheeky stuff like that.
When you have a fully functioning hardware device and are forced to toss it to buy a new one just for software.

Wasteful.

And its just stupid to toss perfectly functioning stuff.

Edit: sorry for poor English. Skyrim for 10 hours has my brain drained.

I present the sir with a SD plasma

http://www.productreview.com.au/p/panasonic-viera-th-42pa60a-42inch-sd.html

Many of the original Plasma TVs only had SD support.

I suppose you think United States is the only country in the world and HD TVs have been around for a long time?(they have not)

FYI, it's not every game. And I rarely see anyone complaining that it "looks like ass" on an SDTV. I understand and accept that the game won't look as good as it would on an HDTV, my issue is the screen not fitting properly and the text size. There are tons of games out there on the xbox that display just fine on my TV, with text that I can easily read. These games include Fallout 3 and New Vegas(Yes, I know Bethesda didn't make New Vegas). No, they don't have to "cater to older technology" but it sure would be nice if there was an option.

I will be getting a VGA cable so I can hook my xbox up to my monitor. I just wish I didn't have to and could use my TV and play more comfortably. The fact that I have put so much time into the game so far, and keep playing it even with the problems on my TV, is a testament to Bethesda and their ability to make a great game. Any other game I would have either stopped playing it entirely, or until I could use my monitor for it. I don't expect them to fix these issues for SDTV users. It would sure be nice if they can/do though.